“Just a matter of habit. I’m looking after her for now,” said Kira, stepping toward him. Her heels clicked on the brick patio. “I need to find her a guardian, and I have one in mind. Emily does have relatives, you know. Just not ones descended from Dimitri Reynolds.”
“I don’t think I’ve heard of them.”
“No? They’re famous, just not in the way you think.” She peered up at the sun, shielding her eyes against the glow with her hand. “All in good time, Thomas. Any visits from a red-haired girl?”
He thought of Ariel, and of the tape. “Nothing so far. I’ll keep you posted.”
Kira nodded, then strolled away. She’d scored him the interview, but not without a price: she’d want something. And when she did, he would know.
Thomas walked to the gates, pulling out his notebook. He looked at Emily’s responses: direct, confident, royal. The perfect balance of emotion and reality. Her brother, though a compassionate monarch, had always locked himself in his room at the thought of a press conference, and left interviewing for his publicists. Emily didn’t seem afraid of anything, except what she faced now: being alone.
2.
Ariel slipped into Dr. Taber’s lab. “You rang?”
“Wow, you’re fast. Well, it’s the strangest thing,” he said. “I ran the test, and the fingerprint seems new, made recently. It’s a perfect match to only one person.”
“So … ?”
“The man it belongs to went missing almost a century ago. He would’ve been twenty-four when he disappeared. I doubt he’s still running from police and assassinating people.”
“But … didn’t you say it was a fragment? So maybe it was damaged somehow. Not a perfect match.”
“No, it had a lot of points of similarity, and no differences. I’d say it was a perfect match.”
Ariel sat down. “You don’t say.”
He sighed. “It’s probably just an old print. Or maybe a computer-database error.”
“What did you say the name was?”
“Jude Fawkes, from Florence, Italy. But like I said, the strangest thing. –Are you all right, kid? You look a bit pale.”
“Fine,” said Ariel, staring past him. So Thomas had been right after all. “You know what? I feel absolutely fine.”
3.
When Thomas finished writing up the article, it was early afternoon. He sent it to his editor, then closed his laptop. And he realized that with Ariel’s help, he could give the tape to Kira that night; all they needed was the real assassin in custody. Damien would be released, and Zoë would be happy again. They could go back to London. He left a message on Ariel’s phone telling her what he needed (it was linked to her watch, and thus would reach her in the proper time delay, no matter where she was in history).
When Zoë returned to the ship just before dinnertime, after a visit to her brother, he realized she needed more cheering up than he alone could provide. She reluctantly agreed to attend a party thrown by some of his friends from college.
When they arrived, everyone toasted Thomas for his successful career, toasted a second time for his and Zoë’s engagement, and as the night went on people started toasting for reasons that made no sense at all. But no one mentioned the looming execution of a young musician, which was a relief.
Thomas, always the wallflower, excused himself from the center of the party after a few glasses of champagne, and in the dim light watched the antics of the party unfold. Then he realized Zoë was not beside him.
“Hey,” said a girl, sidling up to him. “Do I know you? You look familiar.”
“Most likely. I’m a reporter.”
“Yes! On the morning show. I wanted to ask you—”
“I really need to go,” he said, and slipped away. He walked past the speakers, which were blasting rock music, went past the table of drinks, and went out to the balcony, which had been covered in patriotic white and sky-blue ribbons for the Flyday festivities.
Zoë was leaning over the edge, looking out at the crescent moon. Thomas realized that his necktie had been tied around his head like a bandana, and he slipped it off.
“Beautiful night,” he remarked.
“Maybe.”
“What’s wrong?”
She turned around. “It’s despicable, what they’re doing. How can they have a party, after everything that’s happened? How can they play Pathways songs, when Damien could be killed?”
Thomas stared at her, realizing her point. “Zo, everything’s going to be all right. I’ve got a plan—”
“The king died, Thomas. Damien’s about to die, and they’re—they’re celebrating!”
“Then let’s leave,” he said quickly.
“Fine. You’d probably rather be with Ariel anyway.”
He stared at her.
“What? You didn’t think I knew? Staying out all night, and showing up with her? A girl can take a hint, Thomas.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Then who is she?”
“An investigator on Damien’s case.”
“Then why is she always talking to you, and not to me?”
His voice caught in his throat. Her blue eyes sparkled in the decorative lights above the balcony, and she waited for an answer.
A few drinks ago, a few conversations ago, Thomas would have realized that something like this was a natural consequence of the assassination. But now he felt too shocked to comprehend it. The words that had once seemed clear and rational did not come together.
Music, filled with twanging notes and a mournful voice, faintly filled the air. Inside the house, they were playing “Dame de la Pluie.” Lady of the Rain. Someone must have realized that this was a night for broken hearts.
“Zoë, whatever you think, it’s not what’s happening.”
“Fine. If I’m just misunderstanding something, then by all means, explain.”
“I love you. You know that.”
“Tell me who she is. Please.”
How many people had he loved before Zoë? Too many to count. And now it suddenly felt that he had never been alive until the moment he met her. She deserved the truth, no matter how unlikely it seemed.
“Ariel’s a time traveler. I know it sounds crazy, but she has a time machine and everything. She needed help with something, and she came to me. That’s all.”
“You’re drunk.” She looked down at the skyline, her eyes watery. “I read your article. Very well-written. The princess, huh? No one gets an interview with her. And if it isn’t enough that Damien killed the king, he made a girl cry.”
“Zoë—”
“Your parents were right, Thomas. We really don’t know each other. Go back to the hotel; talk to the press about what a horrible person Damien is. You’re good at that.” She slipped back into the party.
“Zoë!” he yelled. He tried to find her, but in the pulsing lights, couldn’t see her. People tried to stop him and ask what was wrong, but he didn’t pay attention to them; finally he made it out onto the street, breathless, but he was alone.
He could still hear the music and laughter from the party, and the last notes of Jamie’s song. And suddenly he hated them all, every single one, especially himself, and knew that Zoë had been right. She’d been right about everything.
Thomas looked up at the sky, at the twinkling stars. Only when he went to wipe his eyes did he realize that he’d been crying.
Ariel flipped the page. She stood under a streetlight on a long, winding road on the edge of the city, and was reading the file Bailey had given her just a few days ago. She squinted to see the words in the dim light, and heard someone approaching from the end of the street. She slipped her watch in her pocket.
“You were right,” she called.
Thomas Huxley stopped, then jogged over to her, still heartbroken from his argument with Zoë. “I’m always right. But now we need to catch that assassin and turn him in to the Celestials; lead him into a trap or something.”
“Sure. Fine.” She fli
pped the page.
“Ariel, a man’s life depends on this. My relationship with Zoë depends on this.”
“I know, I know. I’m just not used to turning in friends of mine.”
“Homicidal friends,” he pointed out.
“Yes, but—why on earth would Jude kill somebody? Why would he kill a world leader? It doesn’t make any sense. He knows not to mess with history like that. Unless—”
“I don’t know, kiddo. But as it stands now, an innocent man is going to die for that crime. And Zoë won’t even talk to me.”
“Right,” she said. “So after we sort this out, you’ll need to get away for awhile. Where should we go? I’ve always wanted to meet Napoleon.”
“I’m not coming.”
She blinked. “What do you mean?”
“I need to figure things out. I love Zoë, always have.”
Ariel drew the folder closer to her, and he stared at it for a second. He remembered seeing that folder in her mind.
“What’s that?” he asked, coming closer.
“Nothing.”
“Let me read it.”
“No!”
He grabbed for it, and one page fell out. Before Ariel could pick it up, he snatched it.
“You researched my life before you came to me,” he said. “Found out everything I did, everything I liked. Didn’t you?”
“Do not read that! I’m begging you.”
His eyes fell to the bottom of the last page, and he froze. He looked up at her, then with a shaking voice he read it out loud:
Thomas Huxley was found dead on June 21, 2507, from two gunshot wounds. He left behind his parents, a sister, his fiancée, and a daughter, born eight months later.
Neither of them spoke for a moment.
“I see,” he said. “You only visit people who are about to die.”
She was nearly in tears. “I’m not even sure if it’s true. But Thomas, you can come with me and travel for as long as you want. Years and years.”
He looked down. “I won’t see my daughter. I didn’t even know I’d have one.”
“I never knew my father.”
“Don’t. Don’t even start. You have no idea what this is like!” He crumpled the paper and tossed it onto the ground.
“Fine. I’ll turn Jude in. I’ll do it before you can even blink. Just promise you’ll come with me.” She pulled out the copper watch.
“Ariel—” he said, but as soon as he spoke, he found himself alone.
Chapter Eleven
When Damien Martínez turned eighteen, he went looking for a singer.
He had been playing music with his best friend Kyle Jones since they were children, and during his long stays overseas with his diplomat father, he’d e-mail videos of his work to Kyle. Now that he’d graduated high school, he wanted to form a band. All they needed was a vocalist, but they had no idea who to ask.
One day on the street, Kyle was sitting in an idling car, waiting for his tardy companion. Then he heard a song—faintly, as if from another car radio. A dreamy, sad song, with great vocals. It wasn’t quite amazing; just different. And it was exactly what he and Damien needed. Kyle stepped outside, but the car must have flown away, because he never found it.
A few days later, Damien stepped into a restaurant just as the song slipped out its closing lyrics, but no one there seemed to know who played it or even what the lyrics were. He called up radio stations, where people were equally confused.
“A song in French … but the singer has an Australian accent?”
“Well,” said Damien, “some of the lyrics are in French, but some are in English.”
“Uh-huh. No idea. Want to hear ‘Hey Jude’ instead?”
At night they attended shows and critiqued the various singers, but they couldn’t find one who matched their style. In the meantime, Damien worked as an EMT, and Kyle pretended to pack for college (he told his parents he’d been accepted to Harvard, where they had both graduated, but he hadn’t even applied). As the weeks spun out, they thought they’d never find the song they were chasing.
When they recounted this to Zoë, she instantly named the track: “Dame de la Pluie” (or “Lady of the Rain”), by Jamie Parsons.
“He used to live in Sydney, but he moved to Tenokte when he was a teenager,” she said. “The song’s a big hit.”
“Ah,” said Damien, disappointed. He sounded famous. A famous vocalist wouldn’t want to sing for a garage band.
“Tell you what,” said Zoë. “Why don’t you two stop by the café tomorrow? They have live music there. Maybe you’ll find someone you like. It’s good karma to support other musicians. After ten in the morning, the place is deserted.”
The next day at 10:15, a steamy day in August, they walked into the café where Zoë worked. They were awestruck: in one corner, they saw a dark-haired young man performing the song with the French lyrics and the haunting melody.
Jamie was not famous: far from it. A local DJ had liked his song and played it nonstop all summer, but no one outside the area had heard it. And as he sang the song that had been everywhere for them, the pair knew they had found their vocalist.
They waited until they could speak to Zoë before they made their decision. When she reached their table, wearing a maroon apron and with her wavy hair pinned up, she still looked very much like a child, but already had the cool maturity and inner compass that would carry her far in life. She had arranged the encounter: Jamie stopped by the café once a week. The barista gave a bemused smile when she saw the looks of awe on the pair’s faces.
“What do you think?” Damien asked.
Zoë put down two lattes and glanced over at Jamie, then moved her eyes back to the boys. “Ask him.”
The next day the pair took him out for lunch, and when he recommended the name Biochemical Pathways, they knew they had a band. When they re-recorded his song and released it with a few new pieces Damien and Kyle had written, the album became a hit worldwide, and set records for downloads.
They still didn’t have much money, as bands made most of their revenue from touring; Damien was still relying on his father’s fortune to keep the band going. So Zoë, who had her pilot’s license, signed the paperwork to leave high school, and went back her house to pack.
“So let me get this straight,” said Milton Apollo, standing in her father’s kitchen. “You were going to be salutatorian of your class, and you dropped out on a whim to be a rock band’s chauffer?”
“Pretty much,” she said.
“Word of advice? Run.”
And run she did; but it wasn’t hard to track down a groupie for a rock band. In Detroit, where Pathways were playing one of their first shows, the police briefly detained her. Her father had reported her as a runaway.
The three band members waited with her at the police station that night. When the diplomat arrived, there was a meltdown.
“Zo, what were you thinking? You can’t run off like that. You need to finish school.”
“I want to stay with the band.”
“You’re seventeen. This isn’t even a matter of what you want.”
“Dad, she’s with me,” said Damien. “She’s fine.”
“She’s not fine. She needs to finish school. Unlike some people, she didn’t eke by on straight D’s.”
“Mr. Martinez—”
“Kyle, this isn’t about you. An underage girl can’t hang out with a rock band.”
“Mm,” said Jamie, thinking of the diplomat’s constant legal woes. “You’d know about those underage girls, huh? Though I heard your latest girlfriend was eighteen. Congrats!”
Police action was needed to restrain the diplomat, but in the end, Zoë stayed with Biochemical Pathways.
And the album took off. A few months after the first album’s release, they were nominated for a Grammy. Kyle looked up the charts; “Dame de la Pluie” was #1 for six weeks straight.
“You were right, Zo,” Kyle said. “My God, were you right.”
One stormy day a few years later, Kyle and Zoë stood on a street in Paris, hoping to flag a taxi. The band was recording their fourth album, which was nearly finished.
“How can any of the drivers see?” said Zoë, staring at the torrent of rain.
“Come on,” said Kyle. “We’ll be fine.”
Still, she decided to wait for her brother, and she saw Kyle off. In the end, she finally walked to her hotel in the rain.
Twenty minutes later, Damien called to tell her that there had been an accident. When she arrived at the hospital, paramedics told her that Kyle had not survived.
It hit her even harder than her mother’s death, because she thought that if she had only talked him into waiting ... if only ...
In the rainstorm, a driver did not see the signal change from green to red, and crashed into the taxi. The bassist had still been alive when paramedics arrived at the tangled mess of metal, where he was screaming his girlfriend’s name; he still had a pulse when they put him onto the stretcher. But before a minute passed after the ambulance doors closed, he slipped away.
Thousands attended the funeral, but only Jamie, Damien, Zoë, and Kyle’s parents, girlfriend Haleigh Melo, and young son were allowed at the grave. Zoë’s heart went out to the toddler, who had his father’s light gold hair.
The first question on everyone’s mind was whether or not the band would continue. Jamie, normally the center of attention, withdrew from the cameras and did not want to make a statement. Damien, convinced he had caused his friend’s death, was similarly mute. So they told Zoë what they wanted, and she went to the press.
Zoë arrived at the London morning show’s studio at five in the morning, two hours before filming, just as she’d been scheduled. It was June 25, three days after the death. While backstage and waiting for the show to start, she couldn’t help but smile when she saw an attendant fumbling to tie a reporter’s necktie.
“Allow me,” she said, stepping in. “I have an older brother.” In a few quick twists, it was done.
Flyday Page 13
